Terms of Service

General

Institute for People, Place and Possibility (IP3), a Missouri not-for-profit organization, in partnership with University of Missouri, Center for Applied Research and Environmental Systems (CARES) and Community Initiatives, have joined forces to create the www.communitycommons.org (the “Commons”), which includes the www.communitycommons.org website and related products, services and websites (collectively, the “Services”), to connect and support those working to broad-based field working towards improved population, health, and more sustainable, equitable and livable communities. Users of the Commons and the Services should also review the Commons Privacy Policy.

If you have any questions about these Terms of Service or the Privacy Policy, please feel free to contact us at:

BY USING THE SERVICES, YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU HAVE READ AND ARE LEGALLY BOUND BY THESE TERMS OF SERVICE AND THE PRIVACY POLICY. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THESE TERMS OF SERVICE AND THE PRIVACY POLICY, PLEASE DO NOT USE THE SERVICES AND EXIT IMMEDIATELY. WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO MODIFY OR AMEND THESE TERMS OF SERVICE FROM TIME TO TIME WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE. YOUR CONTINUED USE OF THE SERVICES OR ANY AFFILIATE WEB SITES FOLLOWING THE POSTING OF CHANGES TO THESE TERMS OF SERVICE WILL MEAN YOU ACCEPT THOSE CHANGES.

Compliance with Law

Users of the Services shall abide by all applicable international, federal, state and local laws, including, but not limited to, those pertaining to libel, slander, defamation, trade libel, product disparagement, harassment, invasion of privacy, and copyright and trademark infringement.

Disclaimer of Warranties and Limitation of Liability

The content provided on the Services is presented as a courtesy to be used only for informational purposes and is not represented to be error free. IP3 and its Partners make no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the Services, such representations and warranties being expressly disclaimed. IP3 and its Partners do not warrant that the Services or the server(s) that make the Services available are free of viruses or other harmful components. Moreover, IP3 and its Partners do not represent or warrant that the content of the Services is accurate, complete or current for any specific or particular purpose or application. The Services are not intended to provide, nor should anyone consider that the Services provide, medical, legal, accounting, tax or other advice.

In no event will IP3 and its Partners or any of their officers, trustees, employees, agents, affiliates, contractors, or successors and assigns (collectively, “Representatives”) be liable for any damages-whether direct, indirect, special, general, consequential, for alleged lost profits or otherwise-that might result from any use of or reliance on materials or links made available on or through the Services.

Intellectual Property

Copyright and Ownership. The entire contents and design of the Services are protected under U.S. and international copyright laws. All of the content featured or displayed on the Services, including without limitation trademarks, logos, trade names, trade dress, text, graphics, photographs, images, moving images, sound and illustrations (collectively, the “Content”), is owned by IP3, its licensors, vendors, agents, and/or content providers, as applicable, and protected by intellectual property laws. All elements of the Services, including without limitation the general design and the Content, are protected by trade dress, copyright, moral rights, trademark and other laws relating to intellectual property rights. IP3 and its Partners reserve the right to track the usage of Content. See Privacy Policy.

Except as may be otherwise indicated within the Services: (1) you are authorized to view, play, print, and download the Content for personal, informational and noncommercial purposes only; and (2) you may not copy, distribute, transmit, display, perform, reproduce, publish, license, create derivative works from, transfer or sell any of the Content or the information contained therein. You will not remove any copyright, trademark or other proprietary notices from the Content. Permission for any other use of the Content must be obtained from IP3 and its Partners in writing.

In using Content in accordance with these Terms of Service, you may not (1) state or imply that the IP3 and its Partners are endorsing you, your viewpoints or any of the products or services that you or your organization may provide, or (2) represent that you or your organization has a relationship with the IP3 and its Partners or any of the events, products or services that the IP3 and its Partners provides unless that relationship is the subject of a written agreement that has been signed by IP3 and its Partners. You will not access any Content of the Services through any technology or means other than the pages of the website itself, the Widgets (as defined below) or such other explicitly authorized means as IP3 and its Partners may designate. See “Access and Interference” below.

Trademarks. All trademarks, service marks and trade names of IP3 and its Partners used in the Services (including, but not limited to IP3 and Partners names logos) (collectively, the “Marks”) are trademarks or registered trademarks of the IP3 and its Partners or its licensors, vendors, agents and/or content providers. You may not use, copy, reproduce, republish, upload, post, transmit, distribute or modify the Marks in any way, including in advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of materials on the Services, without IP3 and its Partner’s prior written consent. The use of the Marks on any other web site or networked computer environment is not allowed.

Services and Submissions

Through the Commons, we will offer the Services, which may include, among other things, blogs, blogger outreach services, text message outreach services, data sharing services, online communities, and other services. The use of the Services is subject to these Terms of Service and any additional provisions that may be specified as a condition to using the Services.

All users of the Services agree to act responsibly. IP3 and its Partners do not control the content posted through the Services and, as such, does not guarantee the accuracy, integrity, quality or availability of such content. Although we do not censor the content being posted, we reserve the right to not post, or to remove after its posting, any content which in our sole discretion we deem to violate the Terms of Service. Such content may be removed immediately and without prior notice, and further postings by the individual may be blocked. Use of the Services is subject to these rules:

You are solely responsible for the content you submit or post through the Services, the consequences of posting content, and the consequences of any reliance by you on content posted by third parties.

Content that you provide to the Commons that is covered by intellectual property rights, you grant IP3 and its Partners a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use, in any form now existing or hereafter discovered, any content that you post on or in connection with the Services.

IP3 and its Partners are not required to treat any content to post or submit as confidential.

Copyright Infringement

If you believe that any content on the websites infringes your copyright and you want the content removed from the website, please send a detailed message to info@communitycommons.org:

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the following information must be included in the message to us:

A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site.

Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material.

Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact the complaining party, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail address at which the complaining party may be contacted.

A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

Widgets. To the extent that IP3 and its Partners make available to you through the Services (or otherwise) “widgets” to obtain access to Content from the Services (collectively, the “Widgets”), you agree as a condition to accessing and using such items that you will not use the Widgets for any commercial use, without the prior written consent of IP3 and its Partners. Prohibited commercial uses include, but are not limited to, any of the following actions: sale of access to the Services on another web site and use of the Services for the purpose of gaining advertising or subscription revenue.

Member Account, Password and Security. Some of the Services may require that you create/receive a password and account designation before using the Services. See “Registration” below. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of any such password and account, and are fully responsible for all activities that occur under your password or account. If you allow third parties to access the Services through your username and password, you will defend and indemnify IP3 and its Partners and its Representatives from and against any liability, costs or damages arising out of claims or suits based upon or relating to such access and use. You agree to immediately notify the Commons as set forth above of any unauthorized use of your password or account or any other breach of security related to the Services of which you are aware.

Unlawful or Prohibited Use. As a condition of your use of the Services, you will not use the Services for any purpose that is unlawful or prohibited by these Terms of Service or is otherwise prohibited under applicable law. You may not use the Services in any manner that could damage, disable, overburden, or impair the Services or interfere with any other party’s use and enjoyment of the Services. You may not attempt to gain unauthorized access to any Services.

Content or communications that falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your identity, affiliation with the the Commons, IP3 and its Partners , or any person or other entity;

Confidential business or personal information, or content that infringes any trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights of any party;

Content or communications that make available unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, promotional materials, sweepstakes, junk mail, spam, chain letters, pyramid schemes, or any similar form of solicitation;

Content or communications that are fraudulent, false, inaccurate or misleading;

Content or communications that violate any law, ordinance or regulation; that promotes illegal activities; that is harmful to minors; or

Links to files that contain viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time bombs, cancelbots, corrupted files, or any other similar software or programs that may damage the operation of another’s computer or property of another;

No Lobbying or Election Activities. IP3 and its Partners will operate within applicable laws and codes regarding influencing the outcome of elections for public office or lobbying activity. Accordingly, these types of content and communications are prohibited within the Commons:

Access and Interference

You agree not to circumvent, disable or otherwise interfere with security-related features of the Services or features that prevent or restrict use or copying of any content or enforce limitations on use of the Services or the Content therein. You agree that you will not use any bot, crawler, harvester, indexer, robot, spider, scraper or any other automated means to access, compile, read or gather content from the Services automatically. Additionally, you agree that you will not: (a) take any action that, in our sole discretion, imposes, or may impose an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure; (b) interfere or attempt to interfere with the proper working of the Services or any activities conducted on the Services; or (c) bypass any measures we may use to prevent or restrict access to the Services.

Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless IP3 and its Partners and their Representatives from and against any and all losses, damages, liabilities and costs of every nature incurred by any of them in connection with any claim, damage or loss related to or arising out of: your use of the Services, any assistance or Services provided by us or the Representatives to you, any alleged unauthorized use of the Services by you, or any breach or alleged breach by you of these Terms of Service. You agree to cooperate fully in the defense of any of the foregoing. We reserve the right, at our own expense, to control exclusively the defense of any matter otherwise subject to indemnification by you and you will not settle any matter without our prior written consent. Your obligation to indemnify, defend and hold harmless shall be limited to the extent that you are afforded sovereign immunity under applicable federal, state or local laws. In such cases where your obligation to indemnify may be limited due to the requirements of federal, state or local laws, you shall be responsible for the ordinary negligent acts and omissions of your agents and employees causing harm to persons not a party to these Terms of Service.

Availability

We take all reasonable measures to ensure the provided services are available 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. However, the Community Commons may not be available due to causes beyond our control, including, but not limited to, failure of electronic or mechanical equipment or communication lines, telecommunications or other interconnect problems, computer viruses or other damaging code or data, unauthorized access, theft, operator errors, severe weather, earthquakes, natural disasters, strikes or other labor problems, wars, or governmental restrictions, and therefore will not be liable if the website is unavailable. The subscription services may also be temporarily unavailable due to development, maintenance or repair. Where reasonably possible we will provide subscribers advance warning of maintenance issues but shall not be obliged to do so.

Release

In the event that you have a dispute with one or more other users of the Services, you release IP3 and its Partners and Representatives from any and all claims, demands and damages (actual and consequential) of every kind and nature, known and unknown, suspected and unsuspected, disclosed and undisclosed, arising out of or in any way connected with such disputes.

Applicable Law and Jurisdiction

The Services are controlled and operated from IP3 offices in the State Missouri. By accessing and using The Services, you agree to be bound by the Terms of Service of this agreement which is governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Missouri, without giving effect to any conflict of laws principles. All activity occurring in connection with the site or Services (including, but not limited to, accessing pages, downloading materials, etc.) is presumed to occur in the State of Missouri.

In connection with any suit, action or proceeding arising from or relating to these Terms of Service, you consent to the jurisdiction of the federal and state courts within the State of Missouri.

Electronic Communications; Binding and Entire Agreement

You agree that (a) these Terms of Service constitute an agreement “signed by you” under applicable law; (b) any notices or other communication regarding your use of the Services may be provided to you electronically (by posting on the web site, by e-mail, and other electronic formats) and will be considered received upon posting or other distribution. These Terms of Service (including the Privacy Policy) constitute the entire agreement between you and IP3 and its Partners and supersede all other agreements, oral or written, concerning its subject matter. You consent to the use of the English language in these Terms of Service and all documents or notices relating to them and your use of the Services.

Severability

If any of these Terms of Service is determined to be invalid, void or unenforceable for any reason, then the unenforceable provision will be deemed amended in a manner that will most nearly carry out the intent of the provision to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law or deleted if amendment is not possible, and the remaining Terms of Service will be enforceable to the fullest extent permitted by law.

No Waiver

IP3 and its Partners failure to enforce these Terms of Service in every instance in which they might apply is not a waiver of any of the IP3s and Partners rights, and IP3 and its Partners reserve their rights to take all legal steps available to enforce these Terms of Service.

Termination

We reserve the right to terminate the Services, access to the Services and/or these Terms of Service at any time without notice for any reason, including, in the case of these Terms of Service, for your violation of any of its provisions. The Disclaimer of Warranties and Limitation of Liability, Indemnification, Release and Applicable Law and Jurisdiction provisions of these Terms of Service shall survive any such termination.

If you want to remove your account or have your account removed at any point you can do so by contacting us at support@communitycommons.org.

General

IP3 (a Missouri not-for-profit organization) has partnered with a number of Partners to create the www.communitycommons.org (the “Commons”), which includes the www.communitycommons.org website and related products, services and websites (collectively, the “Services”), to connect and support those working to change policies and environments to improve the health and vitality of people, place and planet.

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at: info@communitycommons.org

Agreement

Your use of any of the Services signifies your agreement to the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy.

Who Should Use the Services?

The Services are not directed at, or marketed to, or intended for users under 13 years of age. We do not knowingly or intentionally collect any information from children under 13 years of age. If we learn that any information was provided to the Commons through any of the Services by a user younger than 13 years of age, we will delete the information immediately.

Information We Collect About You and How We Use It:

In order to provide a full range of Services in support of the mission of the Commons, we may collect the following types of information about you:

Information you provide – When you sign up to use a Service that requires registration, we ask you for personal information (such as your name, e-mail address, postal address, etc.). We may combine the information you provide to us with information that we obtain about you through other services or third parties; we do this to provide you with a better experience and to improve the quality of the Commons and the Services. For certain of the Services, we may give you the opportunity to opt out of combining such information about you.

Cookies – When you visit a website offered as part of the Services, we send one or more cookies – a small file containing a string of characters – to your computer or other device that uniquely identifies your browser. We use cookies to improve the quality of the Commons and the Services, including for storing user preferences and tracking user trends. Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies, but you can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, some of the Services may not function properly if your cookies are disabled.

Log information – When you visit a website offered as part of the Services, our servers automatically record information that your browser sends whenever you visit a website. These server logs may include information such as your web request, Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser. We use this information to improve the quality of the Commons and the Services.

User communications – When you send e-mail or other communications to us, we may retain those communications in order to process your inquiries, respond to your requests and improve the Commons and the Services.

Services offered through other websites – We offer some of the Services on or through other websites. Personal information that you provide to those sites may be sent to the Commons in order to deliver the Service. We process such information under this Privacy Policy. The other websites through which some of the Services are offered may have different privacy practices and we encourage you to read their privacy policies.

Gadgets and Applications – The Services may include gadgets and applications (including third party gadgets and applications) that the Commons makes available. The information collected by the Commons when you use any such gadget or other application is processed under this Privacy Policy. Any information that may be collected by third party application providers or third-party gadget providers for their use is governed by their respective privacy policies.

Location data – The Commons may offer location-enabled services as part of the Services. If you use those Services, the Commons may receive information about your actual location (such as GPS signals sent by a mobile device) or information that can be used to approximate a location (such as a cell ID).

Links – The Services may present links in a format that enables us to keep track of whether these links have been followed. We use this information to improve the quality of the Services.

Other websites – This Privacy Policy applies to the Services only. We do not exercise control over all websites that include our applications, products or services, or links from within our various Services. These other websites may place their own cookies or other files on your computer, collect data or solicit personal information from you.

The Commons only processes personal information for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy and/or the supplementary privacy notices that may be issued for specific Services. In addition to the above, such purposes include:

Providing our Services, including the sharing of information among the members of the Commons and displaying customized content;

Auditing, research and analysis in order to maintain, protect and improve the Commons and the Services;

Ensuring the technical functioning of the Commons;

Protecting the rights or property of the Commons or our users; and

Developing new Services.

You can find more information about how we process personal information by referring to the supplementary privacy notices that may be issued for particular Services.

Specific Services

The services contained in this section enable the IP3 to monitor and analyze web traffic and can be used to keep track of User behavior.

Google Analytics (Google Inc.)

Google Analytics is a web analysis service provided by Google Inc. (“Google”). Google utilizes the Data collected to track and examine the use of this Application, to prepare reports on its activities and share them with other Google services.

Google may use the Data collected to contextualize and personalize the ads of its own advertising network.

Information Sharing

Consistent with the mission of the Commons, we will share your personal information with the other members of the Commons and with other parties and individuals in the following circumstances:

We have your consent. In this regard, through your use of these Services and your acceptance of these Terms of Service, you have agreed that your information may be shared with others within the Commons.

Contact from the Administrator of any Hub you elect to join on Community Commons

Contact from tools and services that can send information

We provide such information to third parties for the purpose of processing personal information on our behalf. We require that these parties agree to process such information based on our instructions and in compliance with this Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.

We have a good faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to (a) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request, (b) enforce applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations thereof, (c) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues, or (d) protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of the Commons, its users or the public as required or permitted by law.

We also may share with third parties certain pieces of aggregated, non-personal information. Such information does not identify you individually.

Please contact us as noted above for any additional questions about the management or use of personal data.

Information Security

We take appropriate security measures to protect against unauthorized access to or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of data. These include internal reviews of our data collection, storage and processing practices and security measures, as well as physical security measures to guard against unauthorized access to systems where we store personal data.

Data Integrity

We process personal information only for the purposes for which it was collected and in accordance with this Privacy Policy or any applicable Service-specific privacy notice. We review our data collection, storage and processing practices to ensure that we only collect, store and process the personal information needed to provide or improve our services or as otherwise permitted under this Privacy Policy. We take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we process is accurate, complete, and current, but we depend on our users to update or correct their personal information whenever necessary.

Right to Opt-in/Opt-out

When you sign up for a particular Service that requires registration, we ask you to provide personal information. We may combine the information you provide to us with information that we obtain about you through other services or third parties; we do this to provide you with a better experience and to improve the quality of the Commons and the Services. For certain of the Services, we may give you the opportunity to opt out of combining such information about you. You also can decline to submit personal information to any of our Services or to subsequently opt-out, in which instances we may not be able to provide those Services to you.

In addition, if we propose to use personal information for any purposes other than those described in this Privacy Policy and/or in the specific Service privacy notices, we will offer you an effective way to opt out of the use of personal information for those other purposes.

Accessing and Updating Personal Information

When you use the Services, we make good faith efforts to provide you with access to your personal information and for you to be able either to correct this data if it is inaccurate or to delete such data. Some of our Services may have different procedures to access, correct or delete users’ personal information. We will provide the details for these procedures in the specific privacy notices or FAQs for those Services. If you choose to delete personal information, we may not be able to provide the Services to you.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

Please note that this Privacy Policy may change from time to time. We will post any Privacy Policy changes on this page and, if the changes are significant, we will provide a more prominent notice (which may include e-mail notification of Privacy Policy changes). Each version of this Privacy Policy will be identified by its effective date.

The Services are not directed at, or marketed to, or intended for users under 13 years of age. We do not knowingly or intentionally collect any information from children under 13 years of age. If we learn that any information was provided to the Commons through any of the Services by a user younger than 13 years of age, we will delete the information immediately.